Sometimes in testing network settings and authentication ( for instance when setting up a Samba server and users on a CentOS, Ubuntu, or Feroda Linux system) I often find it useful to force my Windows PC client to “forget” the login username and password that it has on record, for the current session, so that I may login again with another username/password combo. Easily accomplished, this Windows trick works on all modern Microsoft operating systems.

The situation: You need to login again to a network share on a Windows file server, or a Linux server,Â without rebooting the client computer.

The most awesome emulator of all time, puTTY.exe, just got even easier to use. Along with loggiong automatically into a SSH session add the Windows shortcut that loads a saved session and launches it, now you have one click shell access to your Linux host from your Windows PC.

So, you have a Windows system that gets a BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death) during bootup, and you can’t see what it says before it disappears. Not a big deal, except that the system won’t boot into safe mode either, so you can’t do the regular method, using the Windows GUI, to set the system properties settings so that the system does not automatically reboot when the blue screen appears. Yikes! Well, if you want to stop the system from rebooting beforee you can get the STOP: codes, and find out how to fix the problem, here is a really neat way:

Can’t run System Restore in normal mode or safe mode, can’t open programs

Windows XP could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\…

Stop: … {Registry File Failure} The registry cannot load the hive.

System error: Lsass.exe
When trying to update a password the return status indicates that the value provided as the current password is not correct.

Resolution:

A. Boot the system into the Recovery Console and CHKDSK

1. Insert the Windows XP cd into the top cd drive
2. Turn the computer off
3. Setup the computer to boot from cd: either by pressing F2, F9 or Delete to go in BIOS or by pressing F12 on Dell computers to launch the Boot Device Menu
4. As soon as you get the message Press any key to boot from the cd hit enter.
5. Wait ~3 minutes for the Windows Setup to initialize
6. At the Welcome to Setup screen press R to repair windows using recovery console.
7. Wait a couple of minutes while setup examines the hard drive.
8. You will be prompted to choose a Windows installation. Press 1 on the top of the keyboard and then
9. You will be prompted to enter the Administrator password. Press Enter if no password was set.
10. Perform a disk check:

chkdsk /p
fixboot

11. Type exit to restart the computer.
12. As soon as the computer starts hit F8 every second to bring up the Advanced Options Menu.
13. Choose the Last Known Good Configuration.
14. If these steps didn’t resolve the issue go back in Recovery Console.

B. Perform the System Restore
Inside the Recovery Console type the following commands to change the directory to the system restore directory:

cd \
cd system~1

If you get an Access Denied error:click here
If you don’t get an Access Denied error :

cd _resto~1

If there is no _resto~1 folder or if there are no restore points inside it:click here

If the _resto~1 folder exists, inside it there are several folders named RP1, RP2. These are restore points. RP1 is the oldest restore point. You can use

dir

to view what RP folders are available. If no restore points are available click here. Otherwise choose the most convenient RP folder. Supposing we have RP3 available let’s type in:

cd rp3

Change the directory to snapshot:

cd snapshot

Restore the main registry branches. If you are being asked if you want to overwrite type in y to agree.

In a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet cell one can use a custom function to effectively grab all test after the final (last) occurrence of a particular character or string. This is accomplished by simply creating a Custom Function and then using that function in a cell formula. Following is the code and instructions for how to create and then implement the function.

Insert a new module by right-clicking on ThisWorkbook > Insert > Module or on the toolbar clicking Insert > Module

Paste the clipboard contents (which is the code above this numbered procedure) into the code window by pressing CTRL-V, or by right-clicking in the code window and on the popup menu clicking on Paste, or by clicking the menu toolbar on Edit and clicking on Paste.

Close the Visual Basic Editor by presing CTRL-Q, or by clicking File on the menu toolbar and then clicking Close and Return to Microsoft Excel.

The custom user defined function is now available to be used in the formulas of cells. To use it, the following syntax format is used in the cell’s formula:

=PullAfterLast(A1,"yourstring")

Of course, replace yourstring with the appropriate character or string.

The pesky carraige return and new line characters, while providing a way to present text for human viewing, are not always desirable when working in a spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel or OpenOffice.org.

'Created by Chip Pearson
'Cleans up data by removing tabs and carriage returns in worksheet cells.
Sub CleanUp()
Dim TheCell As Range
For Each TheCell In ActiveSheet.UsedRange
With TheCell
If .HasFormula = False Then
.Value = Application.WorksheetFunction.Clean(.Value)
End If
End With
Next TheCell
End Sub

Using conditional formatting one may easily show duplicate values in any chosen range of data. Find all duplicate values, and highlight any values that appear more than once.

=COUNTIF(A:A,A2)>1

This is the meat, and here is how:

Highlight the cell to work on.

Click Format > Conditional Formatting

Set Formula Is

Enter the formula above, replacing the ranges as follows:

(A:A means that it will look inside the entire A range. Replace this with your own range, e.g. B3:B5 or CC:CC

,A2) means to count how many times the value in A2 appears in the designated range. This needs to match the cell you are currently working on.

Then set the format you want to see when the count of identical values existing in the range is greater than one. This value can be altered to a higher number in order to highlight cells that have more than two duplicates, e.g. change it to be >5 to highlight the cell when at least 5 cells have the same value as the current cell, including this cell itself.

Copy the formula only to other cells in the range. To do this, copy the current cell, then Paste Special and choose Formulas and paste into the other cells in the range.

If there is ever a problem when a PDF document is viewed, such as an error generated by Adobe or a failure to print the PDF file, then reinstalling the program is the best option. To do this, simply:

Uninstall any currently installed “Adobe Acrobat Reader” programs in the Control Panel’s Add/Remove programs (in Windows Vista and Windows 7 it is called “Programs and Features”).

If there are problems uninstalling Acrobat, such as an error such as “THE PATCH PACKAGE COULD NOT BE OPENED. Verify the patch package exists and you can access it, or contact the application vendor.” then do the following sub-routine:

Now run the Clean Up Utility program by clicking Start > All Programs > Windows Install Clean Up

In the list of program that the utility offers fins Acrobat Reader, click once on it to select its line, then click the Remove button.

Download and install Acrobat Reader from the link provided above.

Once it is installed, now uninstall it in the Control Panel’s Add/Remove programs (in Windows Vista and Windows 7 it is called “Programs and Features”).

Install the Acrobat program after downloading it from the link above. The program has been “reinstalled” now. This reinstallation takes care of most problems that can occur in Reader, and it’s plugin / add-on for Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer.

There have been some mentions of an Adobe Cleanup Tool or Adobe Uninstall Tool made to uninstall Reader manually, but these are still unavailable from the Adobe website to the public. Perhaps their technical support staff can provide the utility if a customer contacts them, as one blogger stated.

/norestart Do not restart when installation is complete
/forcerestart Restart after installation
/warnrestart[:] Warn and restart automatically if required (default timeout 30 seconds)
/promptrestart Prompt if restart is required

SPECIAL OPTIONS

/overwriteoem Overwrite OEM files without prompting
/nobackup Do not backup files needed for uninstall
/forceappsclose Force other programs to close when the computer shuts down
/integrate: Integrate this software update into
/d: Back up files into
/log: Create log file at

In order to make Windows XP ignore new wireless networks, there must be some sort of registry tweak or something, right? There must be some way to force the manual setup of new wireless network connections in Windows, right? Let’s find out… After a bit of Googling came up with these:

http://antivirus.about.com/od/securitytips/ht/wirelessconn.htm
This one may be true, but on the system I checked the checkbox mentioned was not ticked.Â Not to mention, this does not keep the wireless adapter from finding, or scanning for, new wireless networks and reporting that they are in view.